Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008 - (Page 36)

PATIENT RELATIONS practice’s services. It could highlight seasonal health concerns, a new service your practice is offering, or current medical issues in the news. Patients could view the video on a ﬂat-panel TV screen hung on your waiting room wall. You could even install small screens in exam rooms. Your practice has most likely defined preventive care guidelines and disease management protocols. The preparation process for patient visits does a good — if not perfect — job of reviewing specific patient charts to identify necessary tests and generate appropriate referrals for each patient who arrives for a scheduled appointment. But what about the patients who don’t show up for their appointments? How are you identifying what they need? You don’t need to buy a pricey EMR for this. With a patient registry tool, you can extract patients from your database based on speciﬁc protocols and queue them for follow-up. Call automation software can then contact the patients identiﬁed for follow-up and schedule appointments with them. You can then track patients with prescriptions that are about to expire, and bring them in for a visit rather than deal with the more costly prescription re-issue phone and fax process. Use the data your practice management software generates to identify patients due for screenings based on procedure codes and diagnoses. The key is to capture patients’ attention at “teachable moments.” When a patient waiting in your ofﬁce understands the preventive and screening services that are important for his health maintenance, you are in a position to fulﬁll his needs on the spot. You can increase the revenue opportunity of that visit while also managing that patient’s care more cost-effectively, affecting both sides of the proﬁtability equation. According to the Pew Internet Project, each day more people seek healthcare information online than see a physician. Shouldn’t you be the one helping your patients identify their health needs? Why did I wait an hour to spend 5 minutes with the doctor? This is the cleanest exam room I’ve ever been in. This gown is really drafty. • Rosemarie Nelson is a well-known healthcare technology guru and principal with the Medical Group Management Association’s Health Care Consulting Group. She can be reached via editor@physicianspractice.com. This article originally appeared in the February 2007 issue of Physicians Practice. WHAT WOULD YOUR PATIENTS SAY? Learn to improve your practice with real-time patient feedback. Use a customized survey tool to learn more about your patients’ experiences. Real time updates and analysis, plus the easy-to-use benchmarking application helps you identify areas to improve and streamline. Run more efficiently and effectively – that’s good for patients and for profits. READ MORE ABOUT IT! Peruse these and other Internet resources to learn how to increase your profitability by enhancing patient communications: See our flash demo at patientimpact.com 36 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | TECHNOLOGY GUIDE •www.docsite.com •www.healthyadvicenetworks.com •www.intellisound.net •www.kryptiq.com •www.medfusion.net •www.mediplay.com •www.phreesia.com •www.phytel.com •www.relayhealth.com WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM http://www.docsite.com http://www.healthyadvicenetworks.com http://patientimpact.com http://www.intellisound.net http://www.kryptiq.com http://www.medfusion.net http://www.mediplay.com http://www.phreesia.com http://www.phytel.com http://patientimpact.com http://www.relayhealth.com http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008

Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008 TG Cover Story: Protect Your Practice and Sleep Better Operations: Paperless? Not Quite The Internet: You've Got Mail...Or Do You? Patient Relations: Attention Grabbers The Tech Doctor: All About Blogs Lessons Learned: 'My EMR Nightmare...And Why I'd Do It Again' Scheduling: No More No-Shows The Marketplace: Who's Got Your Back IT Enhancement: Time, at Last, for an Upgrade? Online: 'Yup, I'm a Junkie. And Proud of It.' In the Office: New Technologies in the Workplace: Blessing or Curse? Web Surfing: If You Build It...

Physicians Practice - Tech Guide 2008

For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.